Your premise that Academics weren't paid for their Research tells me all I need to know that you know nothing about Academics.

Wait, wut ? That's a textbook example of a straw man argument: I never stated academics don't get paid to do research. I attacked the proposition that "At the end of the day, the main beneficiaries of open-source are academics ..." by arguing that everyone using the internet is using at least *some* form of open source software and/or open standards along the way. Moreover, it is pretty easy to comprehend that for line of business programmers it is much easier to track down problems if they have access to the source code of the pre-canned modules they glue together to solve some problem. The claim that only academics benefit from open source software is therefore false by providing at least two broad and obvious counterexamples.

As for the main discussion itself: it's interesting to note the parallel between h.264 <-> WebM and the GIF <-> PNG format wars from a decade ago. PNG was created to have a non-patent encumbered alternative for loss less image compression. It didn't replace the GIF format outright (mostly because Internet Explorer 6 had pretty horrible PNG transparency support) but it did manage to become a widely used format. However, PNG has technical superiority over GIF where WebM as a format doesn't as far as the reports from experts in video compression that I've read state. This does not mean however that it's impossible for WebM videos to get better over time as more research is put into writing better encoders that still stay true to the format specification. Ogg Theora had similar improvements over time for instance. In the light of GIF and PNG, is it really a problem that there are also two video formats ? Let the "open source hipsters" use WebM or if you don't want to have to pay patent "protection money". If you have a license to use h.264 then sure, use it. Either way, all relevant browsers will play one format or the other over time or both through some plugin.

They are charging. If you own a copy of Windows, a Mac, an iPhone, an iPod, a PlayStation 3, a Blu-Ray Player or any other device that can play or record H.264, and you paid for it, you paid for H.264./QUOTE]
This is exactly the argument I was waiting for
Actually, this is not necessarily true!

As royalties are a sort of "private taxes", in my opinion, their economical effect may be compared to the one generated by excises.
Excises are not necessarily paid by the consumer: it depends on the elasticity of the demand. In some cases the full amount of the royalty may be paid by consumers, in others fully by producers and sometimes both are paying in a variable percentage.

Anyway, if you read the license, you see that royalty are between 0,10 USD and 0,20 USD per item sold... And there's a maximum cap.
So, yes, we may be paying for h264... But no more than 20 cents!

It's actually less than that if you do the math.

But the point is - Google's whining about royalties being unjust and needing to develop a 'free' version are silly. No one cares about paying $0.20 more for an iPhone (actually, as you point out, you're not even paying that. The cost is almost certainly not being passed on to the consumer). I'd rather pay the $0.20 for a better quality product (H.264) rather than use a POS that's free.

And, of course, that assumes that WebM really doesn't infringe on patents. Given that one of Google's biggest effort in the past decade was attempting to copy every published work in history and make it available online without the owner's permission (or even knowledge), Google is probably the LAST company on earth I'd listen to when it comes to intellectual property issues.

"I'm way over my head when it comes to technical issues like this"Gatorguy 5/31/13

For me it's pretty simple Google can afford to support the "common standards" in their browser. Why not both WebM and h.264? And since h.264 is already licensed on both OSX and Windows, they don't have costs there, right? THere's no excuse, really.

If they choose to drop support for h.264, there are other browsers. Chrome is nice, but a lot less nice without h.264 support. I can just not use it

Which, in the end, is probably what will happen. I'm fine with Safari and Firefox, why bother wrestling with a browser that doesn't cover my browsing bases?

I wonder how much market share Chrome will lose as a result of dropping h.264 support, and, will that change Google's mind?

Wil also be interesting to see how it plays out. In the meantime, Safari+Firefox rule.

And this, just as I was starting to like Chrome on OSX...

Google should've made WebM better than h.264 first. Then it would've made sense for everyone to move towards WebM. I want non patent tech to win out but it's inferior right now.

This will be interesting to watch. I wonder how much longer Apple is going to sit on the sidelines before they launch a search engine and a video site.

Search = why? Way outside their current core competencies; and one and a half (Bing) big barriers to entry. "Span of control" is a huge management issue for any large company. You can only drive effectively in so many directions at once before cohesion and mission are seriously compromised.

Mapping software and cloud-based content creation (both alive at Cupertino), on the other hand, seem like more logical places to play which are related to today's and near-future Apple, Inc.

Apple's success in resurrecting itself has partly come from limiting a proliferation of SKU's. The first thing Jobs did when he came back was to prune, prune, prune the Apple tree, and then start adding it to it one carefully curated and masterfully introduced product at a time (each with an easy memorable name unlike "HD RX7000T" whether you like the names or not).

Video site: Unlikely. iTunes is already getting more seriously unwieldy and loaded with legacy issues by the rev that will ultimately likely be as difficult to address as MS has found updating Windows to be. A "video site" would have to fit into the "Apple ecosystem" without compromising all the rest of their media content delivery mechanisms. Maybe there's a model but I don't see it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by InfoDave

Apple should offer to pay the H.264 royalties for Mozilla. Opera too, for that matter.

Didn't see much other reaction to this. Other than the fact that as DED points out, Mozilla's already being massively propped up by Google (true??), is there any merit here?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robin Huber

Like the standardization of rail gauges in the 19th century, maybe an adult (the government) needs to step in and impose order on the corporate children. A central authority has a role to play in helping to create order out of free market counterproductive chaos. Seems like we are reaching that point. It's like football without referees out there!

The intent to do anything doesn't mean you will, so why not let google try. In the process they could create some useful change even if it is something like encouraging the removal of all royalties for h.264. Or who knows perhaps google will create the format needed for the digital blu-ray files needed to fulfill Apple etc intent to kill physical disks

As long as everyone else is free to choice what they want to use let Google have their go on this.

More Apple bashing! The demise of rotating media will be the consequence of a natural progression of technology, not the the result of some evil, Apple led conspiracy.

The intent to do anything doesn't mean you will, so why not let google try. In the process they could create some useful change even if it is something like encouraging the removal of all royalties for h.264. Or who knows perhaps google will create the format needed for the digital blu-ray files needed to fulfill Apple etc intent to kill physical disks

As long as everyone else is free to choice what they want to use let Google have their go on this.

How can you argue freedom of choice as google is taking choices away in order to prop up inferior technologies? They are just as bad as Apple's iOS on that front.

Video codecs have progressed so far I doubt very seriously that the open source community could contribute anything that would not infringe on many patents already held by the major players. It's not the largest community out their to begin with and if you really know your stuff you are employed and probably not in a legal position to contribute to an open source project.

Have you seen the list of patents contributed to the AVC/H.264 open standard? It's a 70-page A4 document

The patent pool is also international. So Google would be starting up one hell of a shit storm, that even they couldn't remain unaffected by.

There isn't a chance in hell that WebM does NOT infringe on some of these patents. Patent holders, with number of granted patent filings contributed (some patents are protected in multiple countries) in brackets, are:

Its not about money its not about royalty fees its not about openness its not about quality

Its the DATA stupid!

YOUR data!
Google has the best search algorithm BUT it is useless if data YOUR data is missing.
Flash and I bet VB8 allow Google to SPY on your usage for Google's benefit.
We already know what the CEO thinks of Privacy --- This is the only way Google can make a buck --- to spy and use the data to mine for direct sale of ad space to you ( they know what you like what you view what you do what you buy) ALL to make them big Brother in the (Ad) world

Apple prevents papers from knowing what you do via H.264 and App store.
Papers don't like it but Google can sell to them Flash data at a price!!
Google remains head honcho for ever!

Its not about money its not about royalty fees its not about openness its not about quality

Its the DATA stupid!

YOUR data!
Google has the best search algorithm BUT it is useless if data YOUR data is missing.
Flash and I bet VB8 allow Google to SPY on your usage for Google's benefit.
We already know what the CEO thinks of Privacy --- This is the only way Google can make a buck --- to spy and use the data to mine for direct sale of ad space to you ( they know what you like what you view what you do what you buy) ALL to make them big Brother in the (Ad) world

This bit I get.

Quote:

Apple prevents papers from knowing what you do via H.264 and App store.
Papers don't like it but Google can sell to them Flash data at a price!!
Google remains head honcho for ever!

Have you seen the list of patents contributed to the AVC/H.264 open standard? It's a 70-page A4 document

The patent pool is also international. So Google would be starting up one hell of a shit storm, that even they couldn't remain unaffected by.

There isn't a chance in hell that WebM does NOT infringe on some of these patents. Patent holders, with number of granted patent filings contributed (some patents are protected in multiple countries) in brackets, are:

49 countries are involved in this patent portfolio, so it's not exactly going to be easy for Google or others sweep the whole patent issue under the carpet.

Interestingly, On2 Technologies, Inc. is listed as a licensee of H.264/AVC, so this will definitely take the sting out of any "clean room" defence Google may try and present.

It's also rather interesting that most of the patents are owned by Far Eastern Companies, the same ones who are making Android handsets. I doubt Google will want to piss them off too much either.

Good post. I don't know many of these people are the same people as the ones who make Android devices. I don't know but this could totally backfire on google. I hope they did their research on this before they went and announced this also... I think MPEG group should just drop the licensing fees altogether. Mozilla isn't going to budge and Google is unlikely to budge. I would rather this be hashed out in court so we can see who is doing what. I don't know why MPEG hasn't already been looking into patent infringements beforehand. What was the logic behind them not already pursuing a case regarding On2 and now WebM? I would've rather this been litigated in court already so we know what to do as developers.

The MPEG LA needs to point out right now any patents infringed by WebM, before the damage is too big, and NOT play the "patent troll strategy" of waiting until it is wide spread to charge more royalties...

I've accomplished my childhood's dream: My job consists mainly of playing with toys all day long.

I see there's a lot of fire in the bellies of the regular trolls, fanbois, et al, but I'm going to avoid all that and simply state: I don't install plug-ins. No Flash, no Silverlight, and definitely no WebM. If I visit a site that requires plug-ins I simply move along. They can't want my money if they force me to install a plug-in just to see their content.

I see there's a lot of fire in the bellies of the regular trolls, fanbois, et al, but I'm going to avoid all that and simply state: I don't install plug-ins. No Flash, no Silverlight, and definitely no WebM. If I visit a site that requires plug-ins I simply move along. They can't want my money if they force me to install a plug-in just to see their content.

You can repeat it as many times as you want, but H.264 is NOT an open standard. It contains patented technologies, which means it isn't "open", no matter how many times Appleinsider says it is.

Ogg Theora, however is 100% open, and is now supported by both Mozilla and Chrome. Since Google owns YouTube, I assume YouTube will switch to Ogg very shortly.

That leaves Safari with H264, which is not exactly a dominant player in the browser market right now. The iPhone is no longer the dominant smartphone platform, either, so Android should also push more folks into using Ogg.

While I understand Apple placed it's bets on H264 (understandable since they are an MPEG LA licensor), I think it'll be forced to include Ogg support once YouTube makes the switch - I think the iPhone needs YouTube more than YouTube needs the iPhone at this point.

Does anybody else remember when Appleinsider used to pay at least passing lip service to the fact that most stories have to viewpoints? Lately every article can be summed up with 2 simple points:

1. Apple is Correct/Perfect/Amazing/The Future/Putting the Customer First
2. Not Apple (Google, MS, Consumer Reports, etc) is WRONG/FLAWED/STUPID/SO LAST YEAR/ONLY INTERESTED IN MONEY.

The MPEG LA needs to point out right now any patents infringed by WebM, before the damage is too big, and NOT play the "patent troll strategy" of waiting until it is wide spread to charge more royalties...

Ohhhh boy I bet you MPEG LA is waiting patiently for Google to roll out WebM for a year or so, make some nice patent-infringing improvements to it... Then BAM! Crush WebM with litigation. Just you see...

Google's video services are dominant by far, but there is a plethora of other services out there that it's not that hard to avoid YouTube if you're looking for a bit of entertainment. Personally, I'd like to see Vimeo get a bigger share. Maybe not as feature-full of a site, most things look and work better than on YouTube.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MacRulez

LOL. DED's metaphors are as mixed as his adjectives are colorful. Fun for those looking for feel-good, but those looking for unvarnished facts will have to go elsewhere.

If I didn't know better, it read like that of someone learning English as a second language. The English language does have a lot of colloquialisms, metaphors and so on, it just reads like a poorly mixed metaphor in my opinion.

This part of the Opera article is nonsense (and who really cares about Opera anyways?)

"Google bundles Flash, so it is being hypocritical"

This is comparing apples and oranges. Flash is a plugin, which Google chose to bundle because there is a lot of Flash content out there. On the other hand, H.264 would be part of the browser itself, and not a mere plugin.

One important thing to keep in mind is that Flash is already ubiquitous. If you want to do any kind of video on the web, you don't have a choice. Flash is needed. However, the "battle" over HTML5 video is still raging. There is no clear winner, but with Google dropping the closed H.264, it is much more likely that an open format will prevail in the end.

So when Google keeps bundling the Flash plugin, it makes perfect sense. Most video content on the web uses Flash, and that allows Google to continue to support just about all online video until native video support gains a proper foothold. There is no hypocrisy involved here, just pragmatism.

In the end, the question of Google's bundling of Flash is a red herring which takes away the focus from the real issue: Whether native video support in browsers is based on open or closed technologies.

By the above reasoning, why doesn't Google just bundle a plugin for H.264? If "most of the web video is still Flash", a lot of the web video is also H.264. Clearly Google is favouring WebM and Flash video for their own purposes. It's a pity all the open source idealists are going to be thoroughly conned by Google. Even the article suggests "Oh, Flash is ubiquitous, so we give up, let's embrace that decrepit closed proprietary system" and "it's just pragmatism". Wouldn't it be more pragmatic to let Flash die and just work with H.264 and clarify licensing, royalties, etc.? People, don't buy this smoke-and-mirrors stuff from Google and Opera. More gems: "If you want to do any kind of video on the web, you don't have a choice [but to use Flash]". Nice one, open source proponents. I didn't know roll over and play dead was part of your strategy.

Here's the best part, the article acknowledges: VP8 is a technology with a specification, not a standard. However, Google has granted anyone the right to use it, and makes no claims about patents to restrict its royalty-free use. This means that VP8 is actually a good candidate for being turned into a proper open web standard.

So... it's just "a good candidate"? And Google makes no claims about patents? IE, if you get sued Google will just whistle as it walks past.

There is no charge to the end user and a very minimal small charge to those that do the encoding. If you are talking about people "paying for it" because the cost to the producers is rolled into the hardware, then you are wrong in the specific sense as that tiny cost is actually *not* purposely figured in to the pricing.

You may be correct in the limited general sense that all costs incurred by a company are eventually rolled into the price whether it's done explicitly or not, but we are talking about possibly $0.02 on a device costing $700.00 in the case of the iPhone. So in this sense you are being technically accurate in terms of the detail, but disingenuous at the same time in the implication that this is a real charge that the consumer experiences.

Uh, you seem to be labouring under the incorrect assumption that I have some kind of problem with the fact that MPEGLA is charging for the use of the patents, or that I'm suggesting it's something end users should care about. Neither of those things is true, I was merely pointing out the factual inaccuracy in the idea that they were charging 0 and therefore the increase of 10% was incalculable unless it was calculated as zero. My point was people were conflating the use of H.264 on the web with the use of H.264 full stop. But incidentally, just because the cost is negligible enough not to be directly factored doesn't mean you're not paying it, it just means it's so triflingly small as to be irrelevant.

Just one of many reasons H.264 is the world-leader and the industry standard (And why Google can take a long walk off a short pier if it tries anything more aggressive than this futile Chrome Heel Face Turn to install itself as the sole provider of web video codecs).

As long as webM stays as is this may be true. In order for webM to evolve and be improved, which must be done, it would or will become a patent nightmare.

Research this just a bit and you will see the many potential and probable patent problems of developing webM any further.

And that is Googles strategy because they have no IP.
Develop something and push it to market no matter whose patents it violates.
Give it away for "free" and reach critical mass.
Once the patent case works its way through the court system the user base is "too big" for the courts to force Google to pull the plug.
And thats how Google gets around patent law.
They tried it with Android and now they are trying it with WebM.

I am glad that Oracle is standing up for their IP and I hope the patent holders of IP that WebM does that same instead of taking the payout.

Hopefully the US justice department slaps them down.

Folks, its all about control. Google wants it but being the new kid on the block they have no IP so they have little control.

"If you want to do any kind of video on the web, you don't have a choice [but to use Flash]". Nice one, open source proponents. I didn't know roll over and play dead was part of your strategy

.
Differently from Flash, H.264 is not ubiquitous on the web, and it is not free. We are not settled yet on which codec should be used on <video> tags. That's why most web video services still support Flash. And given that Mozilla and Opera have together 30-35% of the browser market (now 40-47% with Chrome), video publishers won't stop supporting Flash until the majority of the browser makers support a royalty-free video codec in line with W3C patent policies, so that every web video publisher can be sure that the majority of browsers can play videos using the <video> tag.

Mozilla, Opera, Chrome, Chromium, Konqueror and others will support WebM, most of them because they can't afford the royalty fees. If Apple and Microsoft want to revert this trend and make at least Opera and Mozilla support H.264, they should volunteer to pay their royalty fees for a lifetime. The problem is that they can't as nobody knows how much H.264 royalties will cost in a few years. An alternative is to support a royalty-free codec natively in their browsers, which should be trivial to them. This would make it possible to have a standard codec for the <video> tag.

Ohhhh boy I bet you MPEG LA is waiting patiently for Google to roll out WebM for a year or so, make some nice patent-infringing improvements to it... Then BAM! Crush WebM with litigation. Just you see...

MPEG LA is already saying they believe that WebM already violates some MPEG LA patents. If WebM gets any of the major improvements it needs would also mean more patent violations = LAWSUIT(s).

Google making WebM available free, WITHOUT PATENT INDEMNIFICATION, should tell everyone all they need to know about WebM.

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." Douglas Adams

You can repeat it as many times as you want, but H.264 is NOT an open standard. It contains patented technologies, which means it isn't "open", no matter how many times Appleinsider says it is.

Ogg Theora, however is 100% open, and is now supported by both Mozilla and Chrome. Since Google owns YouTube, I assume YouTube will switch to Ogg very shortly.

That leaves Safari with H264, which is not exactly a dominant player in the browser market right now. The iPhone is no longer the dominant smartphone platform, either, so Android should also push more folks into using Ogg.

While I understand Apple placed it's bets on H264 (understandable since they are an MPEG LA licensor), I think it'll be forced to include Ogg support once YouTube makes the switch - I think the iPhone needs YouTube more than YouTube needs the iPhone at this point.

Does anybody else remember when Appleinsider used to pay at least passing lip service to the fact that most stories have to viewpoints? Lately every article can be summed up with 2 simple points:

1. Apple is Correct/Perfect/Amazing/The Future/Putting the Customer First
2. Not Apple (Google, MS, Consumer Reports, etc) is WRONG/FLAWED/STUPID/SO LAST YEAR/ONLY INTERESTED IN MONEY.

Holy Troll Batman! How do we fight such evil...

Hold on my crime fighting friend, I've invented a Bat Bunter! Simply push the second button on your belt and the "Troll will be abolished" will work. It's a new Android enabled feature!

...I would rather this be hashed out in court so we can see who is doing what. I don't know why MPEG hasn't already been looking into patent infringements beforehand. What was the logic behind them not already pursuing a case regarding On2 and now WebM? I would've rather this been litigated in court already so we know what to do as developers.

I'd imagine nothing has happened yet because there is no money to be made from said litigation.

This part of the Opera article is nonsense (and who really cares about Opera anyways?)

Why would you have to care about Opera? Opera isn't important here. It's the argument that matters. But you obviously don't think you have a strong counter-argument, so you resort to petty attacks.

Quote:

By the above reasoning, why doesn't Google just bundle a plugin for H.264?

They are. It's called Flash.

Quote:

If "most of the web video is still Flash", a lot of the web video is also H.264.

But the point is that the h264 is served through Flash, so Flash serves the purpose of allowing Chrome to show just about any video online while Google is working on making WebM the codec of choice for native video.

Quote:

Clearly Google is favouring WebM and Flash video for their own purposes.

Google is favoring WebM for native video, and is using Flash for practical reasons.

Quote:

It's a pity all the open source idealists are going to be thoroughly conned by Google.

Even the article suggests "Oh, Flash is ubiquitous, so we give up, let's embrace that decrepit closed proprietary system" and "it's just pragmatism". Wouldn't it be more pragmatic to let Flash die and just work with H.264 and clarify licensing, royalties, etc.?

No, it's pragmatism to use what's already out there for now. Google doesn't want h264 because it's not compatible with the open web.

Quote:

People, don't buy this smoke-and-mirrors stuff from Google and Opera.

From Google and Opera? Are you saying that Google and Opera are part of some evil plan to open the web?

Quote:

More gems: "If you want to do any kind of video on the web, you don't have a choice [but to use Flash]". Nice one, open source proponents. I didn't know roll over and play dead was part of your strategy.

And it's not about rolling over. It's describing the situation as it is today. Flash is simply the de facto standard for video on the web. There's a reason why most video sites don't work on the iPhone. Apple is lucky that Google chose to serve h264 videos on YouTube, because that saves Apple's ass.

Here's the best part, the article acknowledges: VP8 is a technology with a specification, not a standard. However, Google has granted anyone the right to use it, and makes no claims about patents to restrict its royalty-free use. This means that VP8 is actually a good candidate for being turned into a proper open web standard.

So... it's just "a good candidate"? And Google makes no claims about patents? IE, if you get sued Google will just whistle as it walks past.

You dishonestly cut off the sentence. It reads: "makes no claims about patents to restrict its royalty-free use"

The point is that Google has released WebM to the world for free, and will not demand royalties for VP8 patents. Google has also said that there are no known patent violations in VP8, and no one has brought forth any patent claims either.

We know that Firefox, Chrome and Opera users are fairly quick to upgrade. This means than when Firefox 4 is released with native WebM support, browser versions that support WebM will be:

Chrome 6+

Firefox 4

Opera 10.6+

On the other hand, h264 is supported by:

IE9

Safari 3+

Now, the h264 supporter might be smiling because IE is on the h264 side, but he should wipe that smile right off him. Because what will IE9's market share be? It will be tiny! And it will remain tiny for years to come.

On the other hand, Chrome is really growing crazily, and Firefox is quite stable. And Chrome 6+, Firefox 4 and Opera 10.6+ will have nearly 50% market share in total!

On the other hand, IE9 and Safari 3+ will start out with Safari's 5% and IE9's 0%. And then IE might grow slowly over time, but this whole time, WebM will be supported by nearly 50% of browsers with HTML5 video support, while h264 will be supported by less than 10%!

And since h264 support in browsers is so limited, the right choice will be to go for WebM, because then you cover nearly half the market (and growing).

Since the alternative would require them to think up some new compression technique no-one has ever thought of before, in a highly competitive industry, it's not much of an assumption.

Apple made a deal with MPEG-LA, and the chip makers have put H.264 in hardware, not because they have some bias against open-source, but because they are just dealing with the facts as they are. OS scheduling algorithms, filesystem techniques, HTML renderers, ... -- sure, use open source (and OS X does), but video compression is a special case.

Wowza (their server can ENCODE for iOS, so it will probably use H.264)

XBMC (makes use of H.264 most likely using x264)

As far as patents go they can pretty much be considered dirty as they all have access to the H.264 tech/code directly, or indirectly through the likes of x264's source code.

These supporters, seeing as they license H.264/AVC, have a problem of cross-pollenating WebM with H.264/AVC tech (if they have any input at all into WebM), albeit unintentionally. Just adds more weight to the patent infringing fire in my eyes.

Will Apple or Microsoft volunteer to pay H.264 royalties for Mozilla during a lifetime, so that Firefox can bundle H.264? Otherwise, 30% of the web users that use Firefox won't have H.264 natively in their browsers. If they don't volunteer, we won't ever be able to use the <video> tag, and we will have to continue relying on Flash...

There's of course a simpler route. Apple and Microsoft could support at least one royalty-free codec in their browsers, so that the majority of users would have native video through the <video> tag. As it is, we will have half of the market (Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Chromium, Konqueror etc) supporting only royalty-free codecs, and the other half (Internet Explorer and Safari) supporting only H.264.

It is not the opinion of AppleInsider. "Open" has long referred to specifications that are openly presented to enable interoperability. It does not mean, necessarily, Open Source or Free Software. Repeating what you think doesn't make that the case either.

Even Microsoft defines "open standard" as one that is royalty-free. And remember, this is about the web. An open standard on the web must be royalty-free. Look up the W3C patent policy.

On the other hand, IE9 and Safari 3+ will start out with Safari's 5% and IE9's 0%. And then IE might grow slowly over time, but this whole time, WebM will be supported by nearly 50% of browsers with HTML5 video support, while h264 will be supported by less than 10%!

Exactly. Besides being royalty-free which should attract more supporters, WebM is going to have a huge lead in terms of video for the web, exactly because IE9 won't be ready until 2012, while 90% of Chrome users and 80% of Firefox users use the latest versions, versus 70% for Safari and 60% for Internet Explorer:

There are lots of patents in video compression and streaming, held by a large number of companies. What is the best way to prevent a mess of countless cross-licensing agreements and patent law suits and yet combine as much patents as possible to create the best technological solution possible?

Why not get the 20 most-involved companies to pool all their patents, immediately removing the need for any cross-licensing agreements or law suits among them, and creating a state-of-the-art video codec from all this intellectual property. Let's charge pretty small, almost nominal, charges for anybody to use this codec. Since this patent pool would have such a large number of patents, no other company creating a video codec would be likely to sue as for any patent infringement because if we violate one of their patents, they also very likely violate some of our patents.

Doesn't this sound like the best idea to create both the best video codec possible and minimize all the patent wrangle associated with complex technology?

But you might say, would not be even better to make all those pooled patents completely free? Sounds nice in principle but if it is then found that our codec violates a patent from somebody else, we would not have any more ammunition left (ie, for a counter suit) to protect our codec from legal challenges.

Will Apple or Microsoft volunteer to pay H.264 royalties for Mozilla during a lifetime, so that Firefox can bundle H.264? Otherwise, 30% of the web users that use Firefox won't have H.264 natively in their browsers. If they don't volunteer, we won't ever be able to use the <video> tag, and we will have to continue relying on Flash...

Mac OS X and Windows 7 both have H.264 decoding in the operating system libraries. Any program, including Mozilla can use these functions.